The Red House

by Mark Haddon

  Richard? She touched his shoulder.

  He came round. I’m just tired. She was examining him but he couldn’t read her expression. Her words of last night. Your plays. Your films. He was selfish, wasn’t he? All those years with Jennifer, two single people sharing a house. You’re right. I do expect you to fit in with my life.

  I shouldn’t have said those things.

  But they’re true. Up there on the hill, he had forgotten about her, hadn’t he? He thought he might die and he didn’t remember that he had a wife. I worry that you might have married the wrong person.

  Hey. Come on. She rubbed his shoulder.

  Trade Descriptions Act and all that. I wouldn’t want you to think … It’s not a binding contract.

  You’re exhausted. She put her arm around him. Let’s talk about this later, when you’re warm again.

  * * *

  How extraordinary that it should happen so quickly. Like flipping a coin. Inexplicable that she had not known before. Had it been standing behind her all along like a pantomime villain, visible to everyone apart from her? What strangers we were to ourselves, changed in the twinkling of an eye. Jack, too, of course, she understood now, that sense of betrayal, stone circles at midsummer, all those signs that meant nothing till the sun poured into the burial chamber. Katy Perry, Maurice, that article in the Guardian magazine, Mulholland Drive. She wanted to be held by someone who had been here before. Lesbian. The word like some creature lifted from a rock pool, all pincers and liquids and strangeness. Melissa of all people. What a fool she’d been. The church. There wasn’t really an argument, was there? Meg, Anushka, Lesley, Tim. Fait accompli. And the walls came tumbling down. So who was she now? She sank down so that she was squashed into the nook beside the wardrobe. The safety of a tight space. She hadn’t done this since she was six, hiding from the monsters. She lifted Harry from the carpet and hugged him tight, rocking gently back and forth. Seedy passageways and sad hotels. Dogshit through the letter box.

  Bizarre in a good way. No mariachi trumpets, no thunderbolt. But he just shrugged and accepted it. Mr Normal. What more did she want? When you get the chance to be saved, you have to take it. Silvered Bible flashing on the beach. How quickly she had found her faith. The twinkling of an eye. And now the footmen were turning back into mice and she was sitting in her sooty rags by the fire.

  Dominic stopped halfway up the stairs. He imagined Alex in hospital, imagined Benjy in hospital. Like a lump of meat he couldn’t swallow, finding it hard to breathe. His own fear of anything medical, just that blood pressure cuff at the doctor’s, the tear of the Velcro and that squeezy black bulb. Maybe she was moist and wretched, but when was the last time he had felt real joy? She’d wanted to move to New Zealand, but he could feel the same pull, clean air, blank slate. And how far had he got? Life is not a rehearsal. The irksome truth of barroom platitudes. He had to call her.

  Richard was falling asleep against her shoulder, twitching gently like a dog dreaming. What was it about this house? Throwing everyone out of kilter, her and Richard, Angela in the kitchen at night, Daisy and Melissa being enemies then friends then enemies again, her own stupid confession. That chill, maybe it was our own ghosts. Maybe that was why she hated old houses, because we all had past lives that rose up. As if you could wipe out history with downlighting and scatter cushions. You might have married the wrong person. Perhaps he could see what she had spent so long trying not to see, that she was still the girl with the second-hand shoes, hanging over that woozy drop at the Hanwell flat, scooters and discos and Penny flashing her knickers so they could steal packs of John Player Special from the corner shop. Working in a petrol station now, that weird chance encounter last time back. The fire was going out, but if she moved she might wake him and she was scared that this might be the last time she was able to hold him like this.

  They were having an improvised buffet lunch at the dining table when they heard footsteps on the stairs. Daisy paused in the doorway looking uneasy. It took Alex several seconds to remember because he’d helped dress a naked Richard five minutes ago, which had kind of taken up most of his short-term memory. He glanced across at Melissa. Fucking dyke. He decided to make this as obvious as he could. Daisy … He lifted his arm so that she walked over and stepped under it and let him squeeze her shoulders. He looked directly at Melissa and saw it in her eyes, she knew that he knew, Mum, too, a beaten look about her. And it was glorious and funny, seeing his parents and Melissa on the same team for once, at the other end of the pitch, several goals down. He turned to Daisy. What can I serve you from this fine spread?

  But Daisy said, What on earth is that?

  Tolliver, said Benjy, because the owl was sitting under its big dusty belljar in the centre of the table.

  Cupboard under the stairs, said Dominic, trying to pull the family back together. Belongs to the owners.

  The owners, said Daisy. She’d never thought about them, looking around as if she might be able to see them.

  Alex did her a plate of cheese and oatcakes and assorted dips and they sat side by side eating, their radiant togetherness gradually driving everyone else out of the room apart from Benjy. Mum and Dad both touching Daisy on the shoulder as they exited, as if they were leaving a wake and she were the bereaved wife. Then they were gone and Benjy was building a model bridge out of hummus and carrots so Alex said, quietly, Are you going to get a girlfriend, then?

  Alex. God. It’s not like buying a toaster.

  My bad.

  Girlfriend. The lurch of the world. She remembered a freezing January morning. Coming out of the Wheelan Centre. Smoky breath and mauve sky and the street lights going off. She and Lauren had held hands for ten, fifteen seconds, no more, then someone was walking towards them along the pavement and they’d let go. Like cuddling up when you were half asleep and pretending it never happened. Lauren. For now we see only as a reflection in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. It wasn’t simple, was it, or quick? The coin flipped, and flipped, and flipped.

  Time speeding up now, Lauren answering a door in a street Daisy doesn’t recognise. Husband, two kids, the telly on in the background, face tired and lined but beautiful. We were at school together …? Are you sure …? Turning and running down the street in tears. And now she was crying for real and Alex rubbed her back and said, Come on, girl. Benjy looked up. Is Daisy OK? And Alex was genuinely unsure if she was crying because she was happy or sad. It was all getting a bit beyond him. So Benjy got off his bench and came round and sat on the other side of Daisy and wrapped his arms around her and said, Daisy sandwich, because that’s what they used to do with him when he was sad. They squeezed and let go.

  Shit, said Daisy, wiping her eyes with an abandoned tea towel. Shitting shit.

  They play cards, they eat toast, they watch Monsters Inc. and Richard says, This is actually rather good, like the queen getting a mobile phone for Christmas, and everyone laughs because he has suddenly become more teasable. The chequered rug, perhaps, the fogginess in his voice, the way Louisa is nursing his foot. Though it is extraordinary, isn’t it? thinks Angela. She can remember the thrill of getting a colour television, she can remember when the Thunderbirds puppets were at the cutting edge of animation despite the fact that you could see the wires used to raise their eyebrows, whereas now …? You can’t tell the real dinosaurs from the animated ones, as someone said somewhere.

  Melissa tries to ring civilisation but they’ve swung out of the signal’s orbit once again, so that when Angela challenges her to a game of Scrabble she is so spectacularly bored that she agrees and the two of them play as if it is a fight to the death. Orts. Beguine. Palanx for ninety-five. Benjy and Alex concoct a fantasy in which the ginger man and the girl with Charlie’s Angels hair are merely outer coverings for jelly-like aliens who feed on elderly people. Richard listens to Idomeneo (Colin Davis, Francisco Araiza, Barbara Hendricks …). Daisy looks at the pages of Dracula but the words just swim. Alex reads Andy McNab and Louisa reads Stephen Fr
y and Dominic goes away to start making supper and the rain stops and the world looks as if it has been serviced and mended and given back.

  The owner of this Orange mobile number is unavailable …

  Jack. Hey. It’s Daisy. Remember? She looked around at the moraine of boy-crap. I’m halfway up a small mountain on the Welsh border. We’re on holiday. Listen … She looked out of the window. Benjy was on the lawn getting sopping wet, doing Ninja moves with a stick, except it wasn’t a Ninja weapon, was it, it was an umbrella and he was Gene Kelly. I’m really sorry. I think I understand now. If that rings any kind of bell then give me a call, yeh? It would be really good to hear from you.

  Gingerly, Angela thinks about Karen, about the birthday, just grazing the subject, like touching an electric fence with the back of your hand to stop your fingers gripping the live wire. Nothing. It’s the photographs of Dad, as if there’s been an absence all along and she’s been trying to fill it with the wrong person. A weight begins to lift. A little anxious, still, that Richard might not be able to find the pictures, that they might get lost in the post, that Dad might be turning away or obscured somehow, that he might not be looking at her.

  Big pie, two enamelled baking tins, Idomeneo in the background, Odo da lunge armonioso suono … In the distance I hear the sweet sound summoning me aboard … Tomato sauce with onions and garlic, because they’d been planning to swing by whatever supermarket they could find in Abergavenny before the Richard debacle, so Dominic has offered to make what he has christened rather grandly Olchon Valley Pie which will include pretty much anything he can find in the fridge and cupboards, parsnips, carrots, spinach, butter beans, pasta shells, pine nuts, chopped apricots, the last two of which will turn out to be an unexpected hit. All topped off with mashed potato and that weird cheese with the lost wrapper no one can identify. And on the side, to prevent Richard getting anaemia, slices of Saucisson Sec Supérieur à l’ancienne. Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc, McGuigan Hallmark Cabernet Shiraz, Hooky Gold, Bath Ales Barnstormer, apple juice, mango juice, strawberry and banana smoothie. Fizzy water. Pistachios.

  Are you going to say grace? asked Richard, which created an unexpected silence. He scanned the room. Melissa was grinning. Have I put my foot in it somehow?

  Not at all, said Daisy. She lowered her head. For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen.

  They sat down and Dominic pushed the big slotted spoon into the pie and Benjy said, I want lots of cheesy topping.

  Louisa leant in close to Angela and whispered, What was all that about? and Angela said, Oh, it’s nothing.

  But Daisy could feel the coin flipping again, because it wasn’t a fait accompli. You couldn’t give your faith away like that. It wasn’t a coat or a bicycle, it was a language in which you’d learnt to speak and think. God be in my head and in my understanding. Prayer, faith, redemption, consolation, how did you hold the world together without these things?

  Richard shifted carefully in his chair, trying to find the least uncomfortable position, the Nurofen not quite taking the edge off. He looked across the table at Louisa. He had been humbled. Was that too dramatic a word? He had always seen his self-sufficiency as an admirable quality, a way of not imposing upon other people, but he could see now that it was an insult to those close to you. He had never been interested enough in Louisa’s opinions, her thoughts, her tastes, her life. A stab of shame. If this becomes a habit you will find yourself in great difficulty later in life.

  Daisy glanced sideways at Melissa, trying not to catch her eye. Had she misunderstood completely? Was this simply one more stage in her spiritual journey, a test she had failed and must retake? She tried to unpick her thoughts and feelings but there were too many. That smashed plate, so hard to see the broken pattern. The afternoon with Jack, Melissa pulling down her knickers to show her the bluebird tattoo. She is pretty fit, though. Lauren’s hand in the cold dawnlight, images so vivid she was scared to bring them before her mind’s eye for fear that they would spill out and be visible to everyone. The Lord is the stronghold of my life.

  Dominic got a signal a couple of hundred yards up the road. He turned and leant against a fence and looked back down towards the house, golden windows swimming in the gathering dark. He could feel his heart beating. As always, the desire to carry on walking, to put this all behind him, over the hills and far away. He had to do it now, the longer it went on the more he would hurt her. Seven rings, eight. The hope that she wouldn’t answer.

  Dom.

  Amy.

  I’d almost given up on you.

  We’re in a valley. The reception is non-existent. Sinister, the pleasure one got from lying well. How’s Andrew?

  He’s doing OK.

  He felt cheated. You said he had to go into hospital.

  He should be out tomorrow.

  I thought he had pneumonia.

  So did the doctors.

  Had she been lying, too? It would make him feel better. Listen.

  What?

  Do it. I’ve realised something. Over the last few days.

  Dom?

  You and me.

  What are you saying?

  I’m saying …

  I love you, Dom. Crying now.

  But she didn’t love him, did she, she needed him, that was all, needed someone. This was not his job.

  Don’t do this to me, Dom.

  The way she said his name, like a child tugging at his sleeve, she suffocated him. How was it possible to explain that? A sudden anger at the way she used her weakness to manipulate him.

  Dom?

  I’ve made a mess of everything. It was meant to be a performance but he had unexpectedly stumbled on the truth. I have to stop running away. A balloon swelling and rising inside him. From work, from responsibility, from Angela, from Daisy, from Alex, from Benjy. Why had he not done this before?

  I don’t know what I would do without you. Is this real? Or is she crying wolf? You’re leaving me.

  He let this hang. He felt shitty and noble at the same time, but people did this every day, hurting people for the greater good. Collateral damage.

  And you’re doing it over the fucking phone.

  The anger in her voice gave him more purchase. You want me to lie now and say it to your face when we next meet?

  I want you not to treat me like dirt.

  The Japanese paper lantern, her little breasts, the way her hip bones stuck out when she lay on her back. Suddenly he wanted her. What if he cashed in his advantage and re-established the relationship on more advantageous terms?

  I’m not letting you do this to me, Dom.

  The phone went dead and the great silence flooded in. The coloured screen hovered in the dark, then dimmed. She had outplayed him. He was angry that she managed to have the last word and frightened that it might not be the last. He had never thought before about what she might do to herself, or to him, or to his family. He put the phone back in his pocket and turned to look up the hill. A monumental wave of absolute dark that looked as if it was about to crash down upon him.

  It seemed like a good time to mend fences after the marijuana thing and the Richard thing and the kiss thing so she offered to help Mum wash up after supper and while they were doing the glasses, she said, I have some excellent gossip.

  I’m not sure I want to hear this.

  Daisy’s gay.

  OK … said Louisa carefully. This was what scared her. How good Melissa was at keeping you on the back foot. The hoarder and user of secrets.

  She tried to kiss me.

  Melissa was too good a liar to risk inventing something as wild as this.

  When we were out for a walk. She took the tea towel off the rail of the Aga and folded it neatly into a square one-eighth of its original size. I said it wasn’t really my thing.

  It was a peace offering, something freshly killed brought back to the cave. Louisa didn’t want to be part of this, but it was too intriguing to drop. I thought she was a Christian.r />
  I think she might be having a bit of trouble in that department.

  Then Louisa put two and two together. The girls were friendly, then they weren’t friendly. Were you horrid to her about it?

  I’m just worried about her, that’s all. Regaining her balance after being wrong-footed.

  That wasn’t what I asked you.

  Like I said, I told her I wasn’t into that kind of stuff.

  Nor was that.

  Why do you have to blame everything on me? Why is it always me who’s done something wrong? She spun and swept out of the kitchen.

  Louisa would find a way of talking to Daisy tomorrow, apologise for whatever her daughter had done this time.

  So, tell me about the photos. Angela leant across the table and refilled Richard’s glass, the Cabernet Shiraz finally doing what the Nurofen had failed to do.

  They’re Polaroids. Is that the word? The ones you had to shake.

  Describe them to me. It sounds crazy. But this is her father.

  OK. So … Richard rubs the corners of his mouth and looks over her head as if the pictures are hung, poster-sized, on the far wall. One must have been taken on holiday. He’s standing in front of a pillbox in the dunes. Normandy in 1968, I suspect, or possibly the Scilly Isles a couple of years later.

  She is taken aback yet again by the clarity of her brother’s memory. But him, what does he look like?